Taylor Neck Reset - Which First: Neck Angle or Saddle Height?

[MarkF786]

Originally Posted by HCG Canada

Mark,

Regarding saddle height and neck angle, here is what I do.

First, decide the desired saddle protrusion. (ie: How much do you want the saddle to protrude from the bridge. 7mm is a bit much, and 2 mm is on the low side, so I usually aim for between 3-6mm protrusion. Many (most??) steel string guitars will compress after time, so setting up on the low side should generally avoided since it will shorten the time before the necessity for a subsequent neck reset. The ideal protrusion will depend upon the player, and factors such as bridge design and break angle. Ie: For a player who wants high action, in order to keep the saddle adjustable for a potential low-action future player, the saddle protrusion should be adjusted to its higher limit. And the converse is true as well.

You can back-calculate where the fret plane should meet the bridge. If you take 4mm/6mm target protrusion with a desired 2 to 3 mm 12th fret action, this means that the saddle should ride 4-6 mm (double the 12th fret action) above the fret plane at the bridge. Hence, for action and saddle height as per the above figures, the fret plane should ride just on the top of the bridge.

Remember 2 other factors:

1) When the string tension is on and truss adjusted properly, the 12th fret action will rise slightly when compared to the straight fretboard plane used to calculate and set neck angle. Hence, the saddle would have to be SLIGHTLY lowered to compensate.

2) When string tension is added, different designed guitars bellies will move (belly up) slightly, others remain more stable. I am not certain about Taylors, but I expect since they are less stiff soundboards compared to Martins, for example, so they may rise slightly in the belly. Perhaps some others can confirm regarding this. At any rate, if the belly rises a bit, the saddle would have to be SLIGHTLY lowered to compensate for the belly rise.

One question for clarification: Has the SADDLE only been lowered to its minimum height, or has the bridge itself been lowered too?

Also, what is the present saddle protrusion, what is the 12th fret action, and how close to straight is the truss rod adjusted? It would likely help if we (the other forum members) had this information.

Thanks for all the details, Ned. I'm aiming for about a 5/32" (~4mm) protrusion of the saddle; at the moment, the saddle has less than half that protrusion, and the action is about 1/64" (~0.4mm) too low. The truss rod is nearly straight with almost no relief.

I borrowed a formula from Nate's website:

A = Current saddle protrusion at 6th string (or 5th string for guitars with flat bridges)
B = Desired saddle protrusion " "
C = Current action at 12th fret for 6th string (or 5th string for guitars with flat bridges)
D = Desired action at 12th fret " "
Z = Distance that the neck has pulled forward as measure at the bridge

(B - A) + ((C - D) * 2) = Z

Using the formula, I determined I need to increase the neck angle enough to raise the saddle 5/64" (~2mm). I triple checked this through a couple other methods.

One thing that's very interesting to note is I spoke with a Taylor tech who told me that they actually use a straight-edge near the edge of the fretboard when lining up the fretboard plane to the bridge to adjust the neck angle, not the 5th string as many people have assumed. This makes sense, because when I put a straight-edge along the 6th string on two other Taylor guitars that are properly adjusted, it hovers almost exactly above the bridge.

Also worth noting is Taylor's factor saddles seem to be around 23/64" (~9.1mm) high. In another thread a forum member posted this, and I found the same results on one of my Taylor's saddles. And considering the saddle slot on Taylor guitars is 3/16" (~4.8mm) deep, that leaves a protrusion of about 11/64" (~4.4mm) which seems near ideal.

[Ned Milburn]

Originally Posted by MarkF786

Thanks for all the details, Ned. I'm aiming for about a 5/32" (~4mm) protrusion of the saddle; at the moment, the saddle has less than half that protrusion, and the action is about 1/64" (~0.4mm) too low. The truss rod is nearly straight with almost no relief.

I borrowed a formula from Nate's website:

A = Current saddle protrusion at 6th string (or 5th string for guitars with flat bridges)
B = Desired saddle protrusion " "
C = Current action at 12th fret for 6th string (or 5th string for guitars with flat bridges)
D = Desired action at 12th fret " "
Z = Distance that the neck has pulled forward as measure at the bridge

(B - A) + ((C - D) * 2) = Z

Using the formula, I determined I need to increase the neck angle enough to raise the saddle 5/64" (~2mm). I triple checked this through a couple other methods.

One thing that's very interesting to note is I spoke with a Taylor tech who told me that they actually use a straight-edge near the edge of the fretboard when lining up the fretboard plane to the bridge to adjust the neck angle, not the 5th string as many people have assumed. This makes sense, because when I put a straight-edge along the 6th string on two other Taylor guitars that are properly adjusted, it hovers almost exactly above the bridge.

Also worth noting is Taylor's factor saddles seem to be around 23/64" (~9.1mm) high. In another thread a forum member posted this, and I found the same results on one of my Taylor's saddles. And considering the saddle slot on Taylor guitars is 3/16" (~4.8mm) deep, that leaves a protrusion of about 11/64" (~4.4mm) which seems near ideal.

Great Mark! I'm glad you are making headway with your understanding of it. Be sure to keep posting if you have further questions, and also post with your results. Cheers!

[murrmac123]

The one point which doesn't seem to have been raised so far is that the saddle height is just one factor in the equation ...the other is the bridge height, and the one crucial measurement is neither the saddle height, nor the string breakover angle at the saddle, but the distance between the underside of the string (D string for the sake of argument) and the top of the soundboard.

This is the measurement which signifies how much torque is being applied to the bridge, which in turn determines whether the guitar is performing at its optimum level.

Generations of luthiers have determined empirically that this distance, on a flat-top steel string guitar, should be .5", so really, all considerations of saddle height should have this parameter as the determining factor.

If your bridge height is 5/16", then your saddle protrusion should be 3/16".

If your bridge height is 3/8" then a protrusion of 1/8" is ideal.

If the gap measures significantly more than .5", then the bridge is being subjected to excessive torque, entailing the possibility of separation between soundboard and bridge in the future, or even a split bridge, if an overly tall saddle is the culprit.

If the gap is significantly less than .5", then the bridge is not being torqued sufficiently, and the tone and volume will suffer as a result.

Breakover angle per se doesn't really have any bearing on the tone or the volume, and although I would agree with the poster above who said that 45 degrees was ideal, (it just feels right, doesn't it ?) the fact is that there are many guitars with pyramid bridges whose breakover angles are way higher than 45 degrees, and they seem to perform and survive just fine.

On the other side of the coin, I once owned a Charles Fox Sonoma SJ where the breakover angle was almost flat ... the bridgepin holes were like 1" behind the saddle ...yet it sounded just fine.

[MarkF786]

murrmac123,

You raise a good point. When I mentioned "I triple checked this through a couple other methods", one of these methods of verification was measuring the distance between the strings and the soundboard. Measuring a known-good Taylor guitar, the 6th string is 1/2" inch above the soundboard when measured at the bridge. On the guitar needing the neck reset, it was 5/64" lower, which was the same difference I arrived at with the other methods.

I've been working under the assumption that the bridge height and saddle slot depth are consistent on modern Taylor guitars, so the only variable I was considering was the saddle height, and thus my focus on that component.

Thanks,

Mark